OUR VIEW: Civic plaza could help downtown

In 2009, the Clarksville Downtown Market was created to boost downtown street vendors and entertainment on Saturdays each summer. People loved it, and it flourished, packing downtown once a month with shoppers, vendors and families simply browsing for fun. It attracted so many people that in 2012, there was an unsuccessful push to move the Downtown Market out of downtown.

In 2008, the Jammin' in the Alley concert was created to showcase the renovated Strawberry Alley. The concert evolved into a monthly summer series, filling downtown with music and dancing. It attracted so many people that in 2013, there was an unsuccessful push to move Jammin' in the Alley out of Strawberry Alley to Liberty Park.

In 2003, the Rivers & Spires Festival was created to celebrate downtown Clarksville's recovery from the 1999 tornado. The now-annual festival exceeded all expectations; drawing close to 30,000 and winning national and international awards. It attracted so many people that in 2012, there was a flare-up between festival promoters and some downtown business owners who felt the three-day event was harming their business because vendor booths were blocking their storefronts.

Anyone notice a pattern?

These and other events - Frolic on Franklin, First Thursday Art Walk, Fright on Franklin - have demonstrated time and again that when Clarksville offers events downtown, people respond. Our population has voted with its attendance and its dollars that if there's a good reason to go downtown, people will go.

So many people, in fact, that the downtown venues become packed - some say overwhelmed - almost every time.

Now there's a solution being floated by various business and community advocates that seems simple, inexpensive, quick and so well-proven in other cities that many are left wondering why it's taken so long for anyone to seriously suggest this:

Create a civic plaza downtown - a walkable hard-scaped open area (not a parking lot), with some benches and trees, that could accommodate mini-festivals, markets, street vendors and outside entertainment.

In other cities, such plazas have become magnets for nearby retail and housing development.

Here in Clarksville, we have an opportunity to consider a civic plaza, with the former Bank of America property coming up for sale, bounded by Second and Third Streets and Legion and Main. It's on the highest hill in downtown, and it's surrounded by areas in need of redevelopment.

This is a project that could be done within a year, and at a much lower cost and shorter timeline than some of the still-needed but much-bigger downtown redevelopment initiatives such as a multipurpose performing arts center or a conference center.

This idea only took off in the last month, and City of Clarksville and Two Rivers Company leaders haven't had much chance to explore it. We encourage them to do so.

Excited discussion and promotion of new ideas shows that serious momentum is building for projects to invigorate downtown Clarksville. This plan at least presents the opportunity to debate the need for more open space downtown and decide where such a park might be added. The discussion also shows that master planning must take place to make sure a plaza or park complements other necessary big projects on the drawing boards.

A civic plaza alone won't be enough to transform downtown, but it could be a key first element to get the process rolling.

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OUR VIEW: Civic plaza could help downtown

In 2009, the Clarksville Downtown Market was created to boost downtown street vendors and entertainment on Saturdays each summer.